Legal Research

Evaluating technology, use of

By Patricia Hughes

An evaluation of the Law Commission of Ontario will begin this fall. (Since it has been full operating - working on projects - only since February 2008, this may seem premature or early. Early it is, premature it is not because it is tied to the funding renewal/renewal of mandate process that will begin in spring or thereabouts next year.) There are many questions about evaluation (who should do it? who should be part of the process? and so on), but I am bringing one to this group: whether anyone has had experience with evaluating an organization’s use of technology.

Of course, one can count “hits” on the website. Are there other ways to assess the effectiveness of the technological processes used by the organization? What about the alignment of the function of the organization with technological processes? the appropriateness of the communication methods the organizaton employees? the appropriateness of the “sophistication” of the technology given the organization’s target audience(s)? Does comparing with the websites and other technologies used by similar organizations elsewhere matter? Are any of these even reasonable/feasible/useful questions to ask and are they likely to attract useful responses (and from whom?). Who should do the evaluation? Should it be part of the overall evaluation? Are evaluation experts likely to understand measures of technology?

Should we just stay clear of the whole thing?

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on June 16, 2009 (boomark / email).